chicken companionship is surprisingly seductive. i suspect you will love your future chicken friends more than you can even imagine at this point. let your family do the work. make sure they use a secure form of caging such as wire-cloth (not chicken wire) when they build your coop in order to keep natural predators out. and insist they build it BIG so that you can set yourself up a human-roosting area so that you can enjoy your friends close up and personal.